Whether he lied or not, some accounts say that he believed the woman he aided had malaria, not Ebola. And the woman's family themselves may have lied to the people aiding them.
Ultimately, the biggest breakdown occured with the hospital, which was told twice that he had just traveled from Liberia on the first visit, and has since admitted this information was available to all providers. This has caused the tilt to the other extreme, with even the most innocuous cases of fever, adominal distress, and similar, with no travel or other history that would point to Ebola, being handled as such "out of an abundance of caution".
Keep in mind that viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are nothing new in the US. what happens in the United States with other fatal VHFs, that, like Ebola, are only spread via direct contact with bodily fluids and can be easily addressed in first world nations:
Hanta: http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/...
Marburg: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
Lassa: http://www.cdc.gov/media/relea...
Hanta is especially on point, as the US typically has dozens of cases -- and dozens of deaths -- each year, all of which are rapidly contained. The cases of "imported" VHFs, like has occurred with Marburg and Lassa, result in identification, isolation, and either the recovery or death of that person -- and that's the end of it.
Also, Ebola is NOT airborne. Ebola researchers will AT MOST say things like:
Peters, whose CDC team studied cases from 27 households that emerged during a 1995 Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, said that while most could be attributed to contact with infected late-stage patients or their bodily fluids, "some" infections may have occurred via "aerosol transmission."
"Those monkeys were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing â" some sort of aerosol movement."
"May". "Suggestive". "Some sort".
Even if we change all of these statements to absolute certainty, it still does not translate to, "Ebola is airborne," in the meaning of "airborne" in the context of disease transmission.
Airborne transmission occurs when a droplet nuclei containing a virus (or bacteria) is small enough (10 μm) occurs when droplets of saliva or mucous (or even blood) containing the virus are projected during a sneeze or cough and and projected directly onto someone's eyes, mouth, or mucous membranes. This kind of transmission is usually within 3', and is NOT considered "airborne" transmission.
"Droplet" transmission can certainly occur with Ebola -- or any disease that spreads via bodily fluids and is present in saliva or mucous. VHFs are not airborne diseases, and a study of one strain where monkeys in adjacent cages sneezed on each other and passed the disease does not make it "airborne".
Being able to get something from having someone sneeze or cough droplets onto you and airborne transmission are very different things.
The quickest way to have a threat of possible airborne transmission of Ebola via mutation would be to not aid Africa in this fight, and let Africa fend for itself, creating an environment where the cases could skyrocket into the millions (due to Africa's infrastructure and inability to deal with the onslaught), thereby increasing the statistical likelihood of the feared airborne mutation -- which, if a foothold were to be gotten in the West as an airborne disease, would truly be a catastrophe worthy of fear and panic.
In reading much of the news coverage, online commentary, and this thread, this article struck me as very relevant:
http://www.nationaljournal.com...
Indeed, with the increasing numbers of Americans likely to believe that any major threat requiring government action is a result of at best government lies/failures, or at worse, an active plot to weaken America and/or strip rights from Americans, fighting any truly existential threat at home becomes almost impossible.